Normalization offers short- and long-term benefits to Israel and the UAE, in terms of clear hard and soft power synergies, including in the areas of security and defence cooperation and technology investment.
Normalization has offered Israel and the UAE, both individually and collectively, a set of short- and long-term benefits that are demonstrated by their enhanced international and regional standing, economic links and domestically driven strategic opportunities.
Although the security benefits discussed in the Chapter 3 have been a primary goal for both Israel and the UAE, increasing soft power influence in the region and further afield has been another mutually beneficial outcome of the Abraham Accords, enhancing both countries’ ability to manage shared issues and threats. As indicated by interviews with policymakers in Israel and the UAE, achieving longer-term regional security integration is the key objective for both states. But soft and hard power objectives are intertwined.
While these synergies are being publicly championed by both governments, the Israeli–Emirati relationship is beset by an array of political, cultural and regional challenges that will require time, engagement and diplomatic attention to address. These obstacles range from differing political systems to tactical divides in managing the strategic threat coming from Iran, and the lack of progress on the Palestinian Territories. Thus far, such challenges have not impeded the relationship, nor overtly obstructed the more fluid avenues of economic cooperation. But for the relationship to continue to flourish, these dynamics need to be acknowledged.
Hard power
Israel and the UAE are small states – geographically and demographically – situated in a complex and hostile environment. Both have built strong defence partnerships with the US, although Israel’s has been predicated on a threat made by regional states and non-state actors to erase it from the map. This is not the place to discuss the history of Israel’s founding, but since claiming independence in 1948, Israel has used hard power and diplomacy to secure its environment, expand its territory and manage territories that it occupies. It has also maintained a distinctive qualitative edge over its regional rivals in military terms, given the durability of its strategic alliance with the US and its own high-tech capabilities. Although rivals have sought strategic parity with Israel, those countries have so far failed to achieve it.
The UAE is much more dependent on the US security umbrella than Israel, despite having established a diverse set of military relationships with other countries.
While Israel has proved itself to be effective in cultivating and using soft power, it has always placed a higher priority on hard power and has used this almost continuously since 1948. Despite reliance on the US for support, Israel has developed its own capability to manufacture arms and can deploy force independently. There have been many instances where Israel has acted pre-emptively against threats and justified them with US counterparts retrospectively, or has sought a White House ‘blessing’ in advance to carry out targeted strikes or launch operations. Examples include the targeting of Iraq’s Osirak facility in 1981; or the assassination of Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps colonel Hassan Sayyad Khodaei in May 2022, although in the latter case Israel has so far declined to comment.
The UAE, meanwhile, has only invested in offensive hard power capability since 2001. Given the limitations of the UAE’s size, MbZ focused on cultivating an effective Special Forces capability that could first be deployed in support of US-led missions in the region covered by US Central Command (CENTCOM), including Afghanistan, and, later, in support of the UAE’s direct national interest in theatres of war, including in Libya and Yemen.
The UAE is much more dependent on the US security umbrella than Israel, despite having established a diverse set of military relationships with other countries – most notably with France to lessen its dependency on one external actor. The depth of this dependency on the US – in terms of arms procurement, training, missile defence and basing rights – has left the UAE with little room to develop an independent capability like that of Israel or to purchase and deploy major weapons systems from alternative suppliers. However, since the Arab Spring, the UAE has been able to exercise a greater degree of operational autonomy and has attempted to emulate Israel, deploying forces first and then justifying their actions afterwards.
MbZ has become convinced that US security guarantees are more conditional than before the Arab Spring, as the US has placed a higher priority on its strategic competition with China. Consequently, the UAE has had to assume a greater burden in managing regional security. This has led it to deploy special forces and materiel in support of counter-revolutionary forces in the region without first seeking US consent.
For example, the UAE deployed forces in Libya from 2013 to support anti-Muslim Brotherhood forces, and in Yemen in 2015 in pursuit of anti-Islah national security and economic interests primarily in southern Yemen. One interlocutor noted:
Whether its disengagement from the region is real or imagined, the US is clearly fatigued from its recent interventions in the region. The diplomatic, financial and reputational costs of intervening in Afghanistan and Iraq, and of managing the region’s security, have been extremely high.
Israel and the UAE are the only US partners in the Middle East with the capacity and the political will to carry out action independently, or even on behalf, of the US to protect their immediate national security interests. They are well-served by their investment in special forces, intelligence capabilities and technologies, and are militarily more versatile than their larger neighbours such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
The UAE’s campaign in southern Yemen has been successful in securing its immediate interests by limiting its mission to training and equipping the Southern Transitional Council (STC) and curtailing the influence of Al-Qaeda. It has been less successful in Libya, however. The UAE leadership has proved adept at beating a tactical retreat and instead pursuing diplomatic channels to achieve its aims. Meanwhile, Israel has learned to live with instability and war in Syria, which has seen Iran acquire a greater degree of influence in that country. Nevertheless, Israel has set its own independent ‘red lines’ in Syria, which preclude Iran, Hezbollah or other Iran-aligned groups from establishing a presence along its border in the Golan Heights or moving advanced military materiel through to Lebanon. Israel has enforced these red lines and carried out air strikes at will against targets it categorizes as threats, in locations close to its borders, in eastern Syria and even in Iraq.,
The two countries have demonstrated their capability and willingness to intervene militarily to either secure their immediate security interests or shore up stability in conflict states. In fact, the UAE has sought to help stabilize states in the Horn of Africa over the past decade. This makes them leading candidates to burden-share with the US.
Israel–UAE ties are complementary. The UAE is not a direct competitor with Israel in the region, and the two countries are now closely aligned in their approaches to the White House, Congress and elsewhere. This has tied their security interests together: both want the US to remain committed – militarily and diplomatically – to the region; but they are obliged to work together to ensure that the US stays engaged.
Israel–UAE security matters
Israeli and Emirati hard power benefits emanate from a sense of shared security challenges. They both enjoy a qualitative technical military edge – albeit asymmetrical in favour of Israel – over their common adversary in Iran, and face similar threats, namely from ballistic missiles, rockets, mortars, low-cost drones, naval mines and cyberattacks. This edge has facilitated efforts to form a common front against Iranian threats, coordinate the two countries’ stance towards the US and lend political justification for new security arrangements. The formalization of the relationship in the Abraham Accords was accompanied by an initial agreement for the US to sell F-35 fighter planes to the UAE – a deal approved by Israel in consultation with the US as part of a principle of preserving Israel’s ‘qualitative military edge’.
One such example was the Emirati navy holding its first ever joint military exercise with Israeli warships in the Red Sea in November 2021, coordinated by the US Fifth Fleet. This exercise set a precedent for collective policing at sea to counter weapons-smuggling and threats posed by pirates and the Iranian navy. However, participating in joint military exercises does not amount to the formation of an alliance – multilateral or bilateral. To achieve that, Israel and the UAE would need to build trust and align strategic priorities and approaches to meeting regional threats. The relationship is far from that at present.
The issue of building trust is critical, and, although Israel and the UAE share security concerns, it will take time until they are able to form a durable partnership. At least two issues make gaining trust particularly difficult. First, Israel remains concerned that its unique cutting-edge technology will be shared, either deliberately or inadvertently, by the UAE with third parties. (The US has similar concerns over the UAE sharing sensitive data with China.) Second, given their differing strategic priorities and the UAE’s greater vulnerability to Iranian retaliation, the UAE will find it hard to trust Israel to take action that serves collective interests, rather than prioritizing its own immediate interest. In other words, the UAE is concerned that it may bear the cost of any Israeli actions against Iran. This vulnerability is fully understood by Iran, which will likely exploit it to try to drive a wedge between Israel and the UAE.
Nevertheless, the building blocks of a durable partnership between the countries’ leaders are being put in place. These blocks may come to serve as a foundation for a nascent bilateral or multilateral security framework. The success of such a venture largely depends on two factors: (i) whether Israel’s and the UAE’s strategic priorities and approaches dovetail, which is contingent on Iran; and (ii) whether the US intends to maintain its engagement in the region.
As previously mentioned, Israel and the UAE’s threat perceptions differ in some ways. Israel believes that an Iran in possession of nuclear weapons would pose a threat to its very existence. As such, the Iranian nuclear programme poses a far greater threat than the actions of its proxy groups elsewhere in the region. Despite Hezbollah’s presence across the Lebanese border and its armoury of 130,000 rockets bearing down on Israel’s population centres, and regular wars with Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza, Israel considers these threats to be of a lower order, and ones that it can manage effectively through technological advancements like the laser-based air defence system tested in April 2022. Israel also ensures that Iran carries a high cost for its actions and makes clear that it is always willing to set and enforce red lines.
The UAE, meanwhile, considers Iran’s proxy groups in Bahrain, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen to be a greater threat than its attempts to develop a nuclear weapons capability. Houthi strikes against the UAE from Yemen, Iranian targeting of Emirati shipping in the Persian Gulf and missile strikes against Saudi Arabia’s energy infrastructure have only reinforced that perception.
Both Israel and the UAE have recently been the targets of Iranian naval assaults in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea. Vessels that are either directly owned by, or connected to, Israelis such as the Lori and Mercer Street have been attacked in 2021, while the Pacific Zircon was hit by a drone attack in November 2022. Meanwhile, four commercial vessels, from Norway, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, were sabotaged near Fujairah (one of the world’s largest bunkering hubs) in May 2019. The US indicated that it believed Iranian operatives had attached limpet mines to the ships below the waterline. Consequently, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and UAE’s EDGE Group started a joint project in November 2021 to design and produce unmanned surface vessels (USVs) capable of operating autonomously to carry out anti-submarine warfare, minesweeping, and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) operations. Abu Dhabi Ship Building oversees platform design and integration of control systems, while IAI develops the platform’s autonomous control systems and mission payloads.
The elevated threat posed by ballistic missiles since the start of the Yemen war has led the UAE to seek from Israel advanced missile defence systems and short-range air defence (SHORAD) systems. An Emirati request to acquire the Israeli Iron Dome and the David’s Sling anti-ballistic missile defence system co-developed by US company Raytheon and Israel’s Rafael Defence Technologies was turned down, however, for fear that the technology could be shared with other parties. In September 2022, Rafael Advanced Defence Systems agreed to sell the SPYDER (Surface-to-air PYthon and DERby) air defence system to the UAE to protect its airspace against attack aircraft, cruise missiles and drones. The following month, Israel deployed a version of the Israeli-made Barak air defence system to the UAE. Interviewees confirmed that further Emirati acquisitions of Israeli defensive equipment are likely, and regarded those acquisitions as key to upgrading the security dimensions of the relationship.
The UAE is eager to develop its ISR capabilities to combat Iranian drone technology, in which area the Israeli defence industry holds major technical expertise. The UAE has also sought to expand its deep-tech industry by investing in advanced technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine-learning and cloud-networking, but has faced constraints given its limited domestic technical capabilities. Cooperating with IAI, therefore, has enabled the UAE to realize its ambition while also aligning Israeli and Emirati security, technical and commercial interests.
The Abraham Accords have reinforced the UAE’s position in the changing regional order and allowed it better to pursue its strategic interests. First, normalization has given it the political capital to work with Israel on persuading the US to remain engaged in regional security, despite the latter’s priorities having shifted. Second, the accords have has given the UAE access to a whole new range of security solutions that previously were unavailable to it. The UAE’s desire to actively manage the region with Israel and the US, and to finance and market Israeli high-tech security projects, has led the UAE to re-evaluate its strategic priorities and approaches, though the path to doing so is long and winding.
The fear that the US may no longer be as committed as it once was to UAE and Gulf Arab security, and the concern that the capabilities of Iranian proxies are growing, will push the UAE into sharing similar strategic priorities with Israel. The Abraham Accords, therefore, provide a framework on which a regional security structure can be based, with Israel and the UAE serving as the key axes. But this framework will only be successful if the US remains invested and committed enough. The economic aspects of the accords, however, are less dependent on US support.
Soft power and reputational management
The Abraham Accords have an important soft power and reputational impact that aims to bolster Israel and the UAE’s image and prestige, and to feed into regional narratives about their growing influence and joint objectives. The UAE’s existing soft power projection is far more sophisticated than that of Israel, which has a much greater hard power capacity, although it is effective at influencing and lobbying to promote its objectives. Together, both states have derived benefits from the pooling of their resources to promote the economic opportunities arising from normalization, and enhance their regional and international relevance.
As described by Joseph Nye, soft power projection aims to advance a country’s regional and international influence through appeal and attraction, rather than force and coercion. Important markers of soft power range from public relations, education systems, technological innovation, progressive architecture, sporting achievements, religious tolerance, cultural appeal (including creative industries such as music and fashion), diplomatic networks and economic policy.
Emirati soft power
For the UAE, soft power has been an important part of the country’s national strategy of projecting Emirati influence as an enterprising and forward-looking state with a progressive domestic, economic and regional agenda.
The UAE has formally recognized soft power as a crucial policy tool. In September 2017, the UAE Soft Power Council launched the UAE Soft Power Strategy, which aims to increase the country’s global reputation abroad by ‘highlighting its identity, heritage, culture and contributions of the UAE to the world’. On establishing the Soft Power Council, the UAE vice-president stated:
In terms of indicators, the UAE ranks first in the Middle East region and 10th worldwide for ‘influence’ in the 2022 Brand Finance Global Soft Power Index (GSPI), and 15th overall in the GSPI rankings., In the ASDA’A BCW-sponsored Arab Youth Survey, the UAE has for 11 years running been ranked as the country that most young people want to live in. Both sets of indicators have been actively promoted by the UAE authorities.
The strongest element the UAE’s soft power is the diversified economic model that provides a cornerstone of its security strategy, with Dubai positioned as an international gateway and the key business hub for the whole Middle East. This reputation is used to attract an international workforce to the country (with foreign residents outnumbering locals nine to one). Similarly, a progressive regulatory environment is demonstrated through strong international partnerships. The UAE continues to lead on ease of doing business indexes in the Arab world. To stay ahead of regional competitors, the UAE has further liberalized the economic and social environment through policy shifts such as moving the official weekend to align with Western countries. Moreover, it has committed to liberalizing visa and residency laws to offer longer-term residency to certain categories of professionals and investors. The economic impact of COVID-19, in conjunction with regional tensions, has seen the UAE pivot away from its militaristic image as ‘Little Sparta’, instead promoting itself as ‘Little Singapore’.
Another part of the UAE’s soft power appeal is in its offer of a safe and stable environment. Its message of a religiously tolerant society that welcomes a plurality of faiths is further enhanced by the signing and implementation of the Abraham Accords. In an effort to demonstrate these values, the Abrahamic Family House opened in Abu Dhabi in February 2023. The building aims to promote inter-religious dialogue by bringing together a church, a mosque and a synagogue in one complex.
Foreign policy is a critical soft power tool for the UAE. As one of the first GCC states, alongside Bahrain, to normalize ties with Israel, the UAE seeks to cement its reputation as a country willing to ‘disrupt the regional status quo and be willing to take risks’. The UAE has gone so far as to host the Israeli leadership, with then prime minister Naftali Bennett becoming, in December 2021, the first Israeli leader to visit the UAE. The UAE has sought to use financial aid to develop international relationships and enhance its image through public diplomacy, utilizing its significant resources to achieve both principled and pragmatic goals. The Abu Dhabi Fund for Development, established in 1971, has distributed over $32 billion for development projects spanning 103 countries.
The Abraham Accords therefore fit neatly into the UAE’s soft power narrative. For several interviewees, winning bipartisan support across the US political spectrum was a primary motivation behind the accords. Such support is regarded as important to cement the UAE’s relationship with the US policy establishment. According to this view, after policy volatility between the Obama and Trump administrations, Israeli–Emirati normalization serves as a reminder to the Democratic and Republican parties – both of which are predominantly supportive of Israel – that the UAE is a reliable and long-term regional partner for the US. Because the accords saw Benjamin Netanyahu back away from annexation of the West Bank, one analyst saw normalization as additionally bolstering the UAE’s image as a peacemaker and as an important new Arab interlocutor that could help manage future challenges regarding the Palestinian Territories.
Israeli soft power
Through different means, the Abraham Accords have also bolstered Israel’s image and soft power. Israel had previously been less successful than the UAE in deploying its soft power. Regional hostility and security threats caused Israel to place greater emphasis on national security and hard power imperatives. However, Israel’s military prowess and strength have some soft power dimensions that include promoting Israel as a successful defender of its security. This image has no doubt led to initial outreach and cooperation with the GCC states, which seek to emulate Israel’s hard security capacity. The reputational benefits of being seen as an effective military power should, though, be weighed against the human rights criticism Israel receives for its treatment of Palestinians and Israeli Arabs.
The appearance of broader regional integration has critical symbolic and practical value for both Israel’s image and its security, and is seen as a victory in the region. After two decades of stalled progress in the Israeli–Palestinian peace process, which yielded pragmatic ties with only Egypt and Jordan, this latest round of normalization has significantly reduced Israel’s regional isolation. Symbolically, as a result of the accords, ‘Israel has gained greater legitimacy in the region,’ according to one interviewee. Another interviewee stated:
The religious dimension of the agreement that brings the Gulf Arab states together with Israel as ‘people of the book’ conveys an important message of religious commonality. Over time, Israel’s hope is that normalization will help it to overcome overt criticism of its policies towards the Palestinians, and to engage more regional states in directly influencing the Palestinian leadership.
Israel’s reputation has also benefited from its successful technology sector, the strength of which has attracted regional interest. For example, the 2009 book Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle celebrates Israel as an innovation-led economy that has made strides in cybersecurity, fintech and health. This has resulted in successful technological partnerships, including with Gulf Arab states, and helped soften Israeli’s image as a ‘war nation’.
Greater integration has also allowed Israel to work in concert with the UAE to influence the US and other Western states on regional threats. Israel is enhancing strategic cooperation through its US and European lobbying capacity to pursue joint objectives of protecting regional security. Through coordinated public messaging and behind-the-scenes influence in Western capitals, Israel and the UAE have promoted aligned narratives about Iran and its menacing regional influence, alongside attempts to prevent the US and allies from reviving the JCPOA. Similar messages on the threat of extremism have also been heard in European capitals.
Areas for improvement
There can be no doubt that the Abraham Accords were imposed by the UAE leadership on its public, with little consideration given to popular consent. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy public opinion polls between November 2020 and August 2022 indicate that while Emirati attitudes towards business or sports ties with Israelis improved from 10 per cent to 43 per cent, optimism about the Abraham Accords dropped from 47 per cent to 26 per cent during the same period, which was largely attributed to Israel’s policy towards the Palestinians. But, considering the pace of Israeli–Emirati economic activity since normalization, it becomes difficult to argue that the decision has been a widely unpopular one. As such, both sides have pushed ahead to take advantage of their new ‘public’ partnership, and have set in train major projects across all key sectors and industries. The limited people-to-people dynamic remains a gap that requires investment of time and effort.
Despite the positive soft power benefits of normalization, cooperation between Israel and the UAE has yet to soften either country’s global image on human rights.
Despite the positive soft power benefits of normalization, cooperation between Israel and the UAE has yet to soften either country’s global image on human rights. Amnesty International has drawn attention to the fact that ‘[g]overnments in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain repeatedly repress dissent while investing heavily in rebranding themselves as rights-respecting states’. In the UAE, human rights activist Ahmad Mansoor has been sentenced to 10 years in prison (where he remains as of March 2023), while Israel’s long-standing disregard of human and political rights in its treatment of Palestinians and Israeli Arabs continues. Meanwhile, cooperation in the cybersphere and the UAE’s use of Israeli-made ‘Pegasus’ spyware to target dissidents and governments abroad has also provided a reminder that both countries ‘define security in a similar way and are willing to exercise similar controls to protect their interests’.
The UAE’s interest in technology is neither benign nor benevolent. There has been a surfeit of reports about its deployment of Pegasus and how this software has been used to target enemies of the state, as defined by the UAE’s political intelligence and security agencies. In fact, high-profile stories about Pegasus in Western media brought wider attention to MbZ, who until that point had largely remained out of public view in the US and Europe. Israel’s ongoing conflict with the Palestinians, its occupation of the West Bank and regional competition with Iran has led it to develop a highly sophisticated technological capacity, particularly in the areas of security, surveillance and arms production. While Israel and the UAE already shared an interest in managing and eliminating threats, the accords brought this relationship out into the open and have led to high-profile joint investments in projects for advancing such capabilities – for example, through collaboration between Mubadala Capital Investment and the company behind Pegasus, Israel’s NSO Group, which started in 2017. However, when Mubadala sought to buy NSO outright in October 2021, NSO cancelled its contract with the UAE, citing the use of Pegasus to target the ruler of Dubai’s ex-wife and her lawyer.
The collaboration also cannot obscure the UAE’s lack of progress in supporting negotiations with the Palestinian Authority (PA). The perpetuation of conflict and increasing violence in Gaza and the West Bank over the last two years has been a reputational challenge for the UAE. To push back against criticism, Emirati officials have stressed that the UAE is the only signatory state that made non- annexation of Palestinian territory a specific condition of normalization with Israel in 2020, while other states such as Bahrain or Morocco neither received nor demanded any concessions on Palestinian issues.
Another area that has not seen growth is at the people-to-people level exchanges. As one interviewee stated:
Some interviewees cautioned against believing that the high number of Israeli visitors to the UAE is indicative and pointed to the limited traffic the other way. While an estimated 450,000 Israelis have visited the UAE since the signing of the accords, only 3,600 tourists from Bahrain, Morocco and the UAE have travelled to Israel since March 2022. This imbalance shows that high-level diplomatic exchanges have yet to be reflected at the popular level in the Arab parties to the accords. This can partly be explained by people’s continued anger with Israeli policies towards the Palestinians.
Differences in political systems and cultural dynamics are also potential limiting factors in the Israeli–Emirati relationship. The divergence in political culture between the two countries – where one governs through coalition politics underpinned by a highly engaged civil society and the other is authoritarian and rules through directive – will be a continuous source of tension between leaderships. Indeed, while the UAE can depend on the longevity of its leadership and policy direction and, as such promise a stability in the relationship, Israel’s rough-and-tumble democratic politics and robust political culture can do no such thing. This friction has been cited by interviewees as a cause of frustration in the relationship. Netanyahu’s formation of a coalition government with ultra-right-wing, anti-Arab parties has become a similar point of contention. One need only look to the Israeli–Jordanian relationship during Netanyahu’s time in office to see how relations frayed at leadership level, especially over Jerusalem, despite the two countries sharing common security interests. One interviewee expected tensions to surface should Israel return to its settlement-building objectives in the West Bank, making the public appearance of friendly relations between the leaders more difficult to maintain. An asymmetry in civil society where Israeli groups have not been able to find like-minded Emirati partners also prevents the development of deeper people-to-people ties.
Another frequently mentioned issue is the process of decision-making, far slower among the Israeli political establishment and bureaucracy compared to their Emirati counterparts. Aspects of the Israeli–Emirati relationship will likely come under pressure as changes in Israeli domestic politics restrict the serving government’s room for manoeuvre or indeed give rise to shifting policies. Israel cannot provide the level of certainty over policy that the UAE can.
In the two-and-a-half years since the signing of the Abraham Accords, the Israeli–Emirati relationship has developed and deepened across multiple sectors and policy areas. The challenges discussed in this chapter, while not expected to break the relationship, will require crisis management, as well as deliberate and consistent diplomatic attention to mitigate cultural and policy differences. It is as if the two countries were pieces of a jigsaw puzzle almost fitting together, but with rough edges preventing perfect alignment.
